1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to electronic cameras and, more particularly, to an electronic camera provided with a still image recording mode to record one scene of image information and a continuous image recording mode to record a plurality of scenes of image obtained in a continuous fashion, such as in successive or motion image recording.
2. Description of the Prior Art
The electronic cameras for recording still images taken by an image sensor such as a CCD imager into a recording medium, such as a memory card, use a battery as a power source. Accordingly, in the conventional electronic cameras there has been a necessity to always grasp a battery remaining capacity based on an output voltage of the battery so that an operator can be notified of replacing the battery when its remaining capacity becomes insufficient. Also, when the battery voltage goes below a previously-set lower limit due to a considerable reduction in remaining capacity, it has been a practice to prohibit taken still images from being recorded or to forcibly turn off a power to a camera main body.
Meanwhile, in recent years there has been developed an electronic camera prepared with not only a still image recording mode but also a continuous image recording mode. Here, the continuous image recording mode includes a successive shot recording mode to create within a recording medium a still image file separately accommodating a plurality of still images sequentially obtained during depressing the shutter button, and a motion image recording mode to create within a recording medium a motion image file collectively accommodating a plurality of still images sequentially obtained during depressing the shutter button. However, there is no significant difference between the successive shot recording mode and the motion image recording mode in that a plurality of scenes of images taken by an image sensor are stored on a recording medium. However, the above battery remaining capacity control is adopted, as it is, to an electronic camera having both still image and continuous image recording modes, the following problem will result.
That is, the previously-set lower limit has such a value as to merely assure the operation from shooting one still image up to recording a corresponding still image signal to a recording medium. In the case that, for example, successive 100 shots are taken in a successive shot recording mode, if the battery voltage is as low as slightly above the lower limit value, the battery voltage will go below the lower limit value at a time that a first still image signal is recorded into the memory medium, thus making impossible to record the remaining still image signals. Also, in a certain case, the power to the camera main body has to be forcibly turned off, thus making difficult to complete a successive shot recording mode. Such a problem is true for operation in the motion image recording mode.